SAN FRANCISCO — A new original exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco shows that while the Jews may be an ancient people, they are also a definitively modernist one

“Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism” is the first major exhibition to explore the role of the many Jewish architects, designers, and patrons —both American- and European-born — in the formation of a new American domestic landscape post-World War II.

Though names such as Alex Steinweiss, Ruth Adler Schnee, Henry Dreyfuss, and Saul Bass may be unfamiliar, even a cursory look at their represented objects affirms their impact. With a preference for abstraction, these designers continue to influence everyday surroundings decades after the modernist movement reached its apex. One need only go on a weekend shopping trip to the local IKEA to grasp their democratization of style.